Over 50 insight­ful and fun mem­bers of the world­wide Sharp­Brains com­mu­ni­ty had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gath­er in DC, New York and San Fran­cis­co last month in order to meet in per­son -often for the first time!- and to dis­cuss next steps to dri­ve mean­ing­ful inno­va­tion in the brain health and fit­ness space.

1) Join Sharp­Brains Coun­cil for Brain Fit­ness Inno­va­tion, a glob­al cross-sec­tor resource and com­mu­ni­ty for inno­va­tors & deci­sion-mak­ers, on a com­pli­men­ta­ry basis before Decem­ber 31st, 2011 (we are waiv­ing annu­al mem­ber­ship fees for the first year to Sharp­Brains Sum­mit par­tic­i­pants).

In order to join, please Con­tact Us indi­cat­ing the email address you used to reg­is­ter to the Sum­mit (so we can ver­i­fy par­tic­i­pa­tion).

The 2011 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit brought togeth­er more than 260 research, tech­nol­o­gy and indus­try inno­va­tors in 17 coun­tries for 3 days to dis­cuss the rapid­ly evolv­ing devel­op­ments in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and pol­i­cy for life­long brain health. A num­ber of impor­tant themes emerged from the talks and dis­cus­sions, includ­ing poten­tial approach­es to devel­op­ing a rich dig­i­tal toolk­it to mon­i­tor and main­tain cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al health, the need for inno­v­a­tive cross-sec­tor part­ner­ships and the urgency of scal­ing up solu­tion to address grow­ing soci­etal needs. Also dis­cussed were required sci­en­tif­ic frame­works, mar­ket­ing stan­dards, analy­sis of latent con­sumer demands, and meth­ods to dis­sem­i­nate and dis­cuss time­ly infor­ma­tion and analy­sis – such as vir­tu­al con­fer­ences to bring togeth­er mul­ti­ple stake­hold­ers to enable cross-sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion and fos­ter inno­va­tion. Glob­al pri­or­i­ties such as opti­miz­ing cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al health across the lifes­pan pro­vide a com­pelling rea­son to inno­vate about the process of inno­va­tion itself, pool­ing the efforts of hun­dreds of pio­neers across the tra­di­tion­al silos of geog­ra­phy, sec­tor and pro­fes­sion. Vir­tu­al con­fer­ences can enable suc­cess­ful dis­trib­uted col­lab­o­ra­tion when they focus on appro­pri­ate use of the dig­i­tal medi­um, deliv­er a clear val­ue propo­si­tion to par­tic­i­pants and pri­or­i­tize ease of tech­ni­cal access.

3) To learn more about the Sharp­Brains Coun­cil, and to Sign in if you are already a Mem­ber, please click Here.

Please note that the Sharp­Brains Coun­cil is designed to facil­i­tate high-qual­i­ty infor­ma­tion shar­ing and con­nec­tions among pro­fes­sion­als. Before post­ing any­thing, please con­sid­er how oth­er inno­va­tors and deci­sion-mak­ers in the field will ben­e­fit from what you are shar­ing. We all want to track and dis­cuss new research, new tools, new ser­vices, new best prac­tices, new needs, inter­est­ing case stud­ies and developments…but irrel­e­vant, fact-free or overt­ly self-pro­mo­tion­al con­tent will be flagged and delet­ed, and repeat offend­ers will lose mem­ber­ship sta­tus.

We look for­ward to meet­ing many of you over at SharpBrainsCouncil.com!

About SharpBrains

As seen in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, BBC News, CNN, Reuters and more, SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science.